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Used News: Privacy, Piracy, Music, TV ... and Kobe
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By Jeff Foster, Section UnFairUse
Posted on Sun Jun 20, 2004 at 11:28:09 PM PDT
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Last week, I took a four-day trip to Texas to visit pseudo relatives (hence no Used News last week). When I got back, I had over 300 spams, and the excellent spam filter Popfile nailed every single one of them. But it did classify one e-mail as spam incorrectly, since it appears to have been from SBC/Yahoo, my broadband provider. Here is the text in full:
Hello xxxxxx@sbcglobal.net,
You are allowed up to -2048.0 MB storage in your Yahoo! Mail account.
You have exceeded your quota by a large amount, as you are currently using 0.0 MB of storage. Your account has been temporarily disabled from receiving new messages. Please delete messages you no longer need, especially large messages, in your Yahoo! Mail account so that you can receive new mail. To delete messages, just go to the Yahoo! Mail website (http://mail.yahoo.com) and sign in to your account.
We recommend that you keep at least 1 MB of free space to receive incoming mail. To reduce the likelihood of reaching or exceeding your storage quota, we suggest that you configure your POP3 client to "Delete messages from the server" when retrieving your Yahoo! Mail. Check the help files for your POP3 client if you need assistance in adjusting your settings.
Sincerely,
The Yahoo! Mail Team
I see. I'm 2 gig over my storage maximum by using 0 MB of storage. I can see why Popfile classified it as spam, as it does indeed look like a phising expedition. However, on further review, it's probably not. SBC and Yahoo are partners, and since I have SBC/Yahoo DSL, the "Yahoo Mail Team" would have a reason for e-mailing me. Plus, there is no phising angle here. The only link in the e-mail was a real link to Yahoo mail. I guess it's just a bug in Yahoo's revamped Webmail system. Still, one would think that I would of received a some sort of mea culpa on the part of Yahoo or SBC. I tried contacting SBC about this, but SBC said it was Yahoo's problem, and they gave me no way of contacting Yahoo itself. In the end, I guess it's just a really weird, but rather funny e-mail, but I wish I could know the whole story.
Did anyone else get this message from SBC/Yahoo? If so, or if you think there's something I missed this week or something I should be covering, leave a comment below or send me an E-mail at Jeff@malgenic.org
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Piracy and Privacy Laws Galore
Lots going on on the legislative front this week. First is, shocker of shockers, a piece of good news. From Wired, we hear news of HR107, a DMCA amendment that would remove the provision in the DMCA that makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection schemes. The law is sponsored by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Virginia), who has been a real friend to people interested in fair use these last few years. The bill apparently doesn't have a chance to be introduced this congressional session, but it does have 19 co-sponsors, so maybe it's got a shot in the next cycle (or it could just be election year posturing, who knows). Unfortunately, we do have some bad news. After writing the DMCA, threatening to blow up peoples' computers who download music, and introducing the PIRATE act, Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah), has now introduced the Induce ACT, a bill which appears to make even THINKING about copyright infringement a crime punishable by death. Well, not quite, but it's pretty bad. Here's an excerpt from Copyfight:
Chapter 5 of title 17, United States Code, is amended by adding to the end of section 501 the following:
(g) Intentional Inducement of Infringement.-Whoever intentionally induces any violation identified in subsection (a) of this section shall be liable as an infringer.
(1) In subsection (g), "intentionally induces" means intentionally aids, abets, induces, counsels, or procures, and intent may be shown by acts from which a reasonable person would find intent to induce infringement based upon all relevant information about such acts then reasonably available to the actor, including whether the activity relies on infringement for its commercial viability.
(2) Nothing in this section shall enlarge or diminish the doctrines of vicarious or contributory liability for copyright infringement or require any court to unjustly withhold or impose any secondary liability for copyright infringement.
Uh-oh. This link to Copyfight above has a better explanation then I could give, but suffice it to say, this law is bad news.
Invasion of the Copy-Protected CDs
Audioslave-lite...err...I mean Velvet Revolver, a new “superband” (Guns & Roses sans Axle Rose with Scott Wieland formally of Stone Temple Pilots as singer) has just topped the Billboard Charts with their album, Contraband. Why is this news? Because Contraband is a copy-protected CD, making it the first CD with copy protection to top the US charts. Now that consumers have seemingly accepted copy-protected CD's, one would imagine that all CD's will be copy protected within the year. First out of the gate: The Beastie Boys, whose new CD installs a piece of software onto PCs and Macs that prevents copying the CD. The copy protection is installed completely covertly, as it does not inform the user that the software is being installed, nor does it provide any indication that it was ever installed in the first place. I feel as though I should make a pun involving the word 'copy' being inserted into some Beastie Boys lyrics, but I'll spare you the horror.
Kobe Assists Privacy Invasion
Kobe Bryant's attorneys in his rape case have asked the court, apparently successfully, to examine the text messages sent to and from the cell phone of the woman who has accused Kobe of rape as possible evidence. AT&T was the woman's cell phone service provider, and they say that they normally delete the messages after 72 hours, but the messages in question where retrieved nearly four months later, probably from an archived backup. This is one of the first times text messages have come up in US courts, as text messaging has just started to catch on here. The decisions made in this case could have a major impact on privacy and wiretapping laws, not just relating to phone text messaging, but also IM, e-mail and other Internet communications systems.
DirecTV Backs off Lawsuits
For a while now, DirecTV, a satellite television provider, has been suing people for purchasing smart card writers. Smart cards are used by DirecTV to tell the satellite receiver if it is authorized to view channels and if so, which ones. Some people, being people and all, quickly figured out how to hack the smart card using smart card writers so that they could receive television for free. DirecTV then started suing people who had purchased these writers, even though they have many other legitimate uses and DirecTV had no proof that these people has broken any laws. Thankfully, the EFF has convinced DirecTV to cease this behavior, which is of course, great, although it doesn't really seem like a corporation to fold to the EFF like that. I think there's more to this then meets the eye.
SCO Stock Watch
DOWN 1.3% to $5.03
Other News of Note
Weblogs.com Goes Dark
Microsoft Prepares to enter Anti-Virus Arena
Microsoft Reconstitutes IE Development
New IE Flaws Mean New Browser Hijackers
Betting on Election Domains
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